A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels

by Bernard Cornwall

  They were less happy with the task she had set them. She had ordered the sunken barge to be taken from the water.

  A footman who was a strong swimmer looped chains over the prow, hooking them beneath the swell of the Lazen escutcheon. The fence of the park had to be taken down to give the horses room to haul westward, yet even with thirty horses being urged on by grooms and farmworkers it seemed the barge could not be shifted.

  She insisted they keep trying. She ordered a rope tied to the pavilion and pulled sideways to rock the boat in its mud bed and, as the pavilion pillar splintered, so the great teams jerked forward and Wirrell shouted to keep them moving and the men cheered because at last the hull had freed itself from the clinging slime of the lake's bed.

  Campion laughed with the soaking, happy men as the boat came, smeared and stinking, lurching up onto the bank with the water pouring from its sprung planks. She saw the cutlery, broken crystal, and smashed china on its deck. George Hamblegird, who feared he would have to rebuild the craft, scratched his head beside her. 'Better let her dry out, my Lady, before we lift her onto a wagon.'

  She smiled at him. 'I don't want it lifted onto a wagon, George. I want it burnt.'

  He looked at her in astonishment. 'You want what?'

  She was walking away from the barge. 'I said burn it!'

  Some thought that her father's death had turned her brain, but the order had come in the voice of a great lady and the order was obeyed. It took two days, the wood was so wet, but by cramming the soggy interior with pitch smeared lumber and tinder, the boat was burned. At night Campion could see the dull red of the fire, and by day there was a smear of smoke that drifted over the park. When it was done, and when the barge was just scraps of blackened timber on the scorched grass, Hamblegird brought her a curious, knobbly lump of silver. 'Reckon that be a knife we didn't find, my Lady, melted right down!'

  She put it on the Long Gallery mantel like a trophy.

  Yet if burning the boat in which she had accepted marriage was her private gesture, there could be no such public gesture. In August, in a flurry of dust, outriders, carriages, and servants, Lord Culloden returned. With him, whether by accident or design, came Uncle Achilles and Cartmel Scrimgeour.

  She felt as if the tribe of men, the capable, authoritative tribe, had come to end her days of sad freedom. There was a sudden air of decision in the Castle, like a cold wind in a warm house.

  Lord Culloden, the day of his arrival, begged to walk with her in the WaterGarden. Mrs Hutchinson, bundled with shawls against an unseasonal north wind, sat in an arbour of roses to watch them where they paced the walks.

  Campion, a black parasol over her head, kept her elbows tight to her side so that Lord Culloden could not take her arm. She walked slowly, stopping often to stare into the slow moving, shallow canals where the carp swam among the lily pads. Lord Culloden seemed to turn his body towards her as he walked. He gesticulated. Mrs Hutchinson, half dozing among the roses, thought how solicitous he looked as he spoke so earnestly to Campion.

  'I worry for you, dear Campion.'

  'I would not have you worried, my Lord.'

  Their shoes seemed loud on the gravel. From the lawns beyond the Garden House came the slithering whisper of scythes.

  Lord Culloden took off his black hat, frowned at the red lining, then put it back on. 'You would not see Dr Fenner?'

  Campion stared at the gravel ahead of her. 'I am not ill, my Lord.'

  'You're thin, my dear, very thin.'

  'I've always been thin.' She said it defensively and stopped on one of the bridges. She stared into the water.

  Lord Culloden leaned his back against the bridge. In London Valentine Larke had given him good news, news that the French government forces were closing on Le Revenant, and that soon, very soon, Larke expected to hear of the death of the sixth Earl. Larke also told Culloden that the Fallen Ones were demanding a swift marriage. 'I don't care if she's in mourning! She has to be tied up, my Lord. There must be no loose ends that can be dragged out into the open. Marry her!'

  Culloden looked sideways at her. Light was reflected from the canal, light that rippled on her face as it had on that day in the pleasure barge. He thought how beautiful she was, like a shy, wild creature that had to be tempted with exquisite cunning into the nets of the hunters. It was a pity she must die, though he was consoled by the knowledge that, before she was sacrificed, he would take her in marriage. And then? He still did not know how she was to die. He pushed the problem away and turned, so that his elbow was beside hers. He touched a finger to the ends of his moustache. 'Your uncle and Scrimgeour asked me to talk with you.'

  She looked at him. So the conjunction of their arrival was no accident. She looked back at the wind-rippled water, bright with lilies. 'You needed to be asked, my Lord?' A fish moved in the dark shadows beneath her and she knew she had been churlish. It was not Lord Culloden's fault that the Gypsy haunted her dreams. She looked at him. 'I'm sorry, my Lord.'

  As an act of contrition she let him take her elbow. He talked softly but persuasively. He talked of a danger to Lazen, of the future's uncertainty, of Toby's irresponsibility. She protested at that, but it was true. Toby should be here, not pursuing his futile vengeance in France.

  Culloden spoke of Sir Julius. 'Rumour says he's drunk twenty hours of the day. Rumour says worse.'

  'Do we listen to rumour, my Lord?'

  He shrugged. 'Can you imagine Julius taking up residence here? How will you spend your days, my Lady? How will you stop him destroying the pictures, the treasures, the books? And how will you spend your nights?'

  She said nothing. She stopped at the north west corner of the garden and stared at the white temple across the park. If it was Skavadale's hand, she thought, that held her arm, then she would not want to shrink from the touch. She let the wind catch her parasol and used the sudden motion to disengage her elbow.

  Lord Culloden took a deep breath. He folded his hands at his back. He cleared his throat. 'I once asked for your hand in marriage, dear lady,' he sounded acutely embarrassed, 'and now, with great trembling, I do so again.'

  She stopped. She looked at him quizzically.

  He smiled. 'I would bring to your life some solace and joy. I fear more unhappiness, I fear your cousin, I wish only to protect you as I once had the honour to do.'

  The memory of her rescue on the Millett's End road always brought a pang of guilty debt to Campion. She looked down at the gravel. 'My Lord?'

  His voice was low and urgent. 'It is seemly to wait, dear Campion, to wait till the mourning is over, but I fear for you if we wait. You will forgive frankness?'

  'I would be grateful for it, my Lord.'

  'We should marry. We should have a quiet ceremony. Later, when the unhappiness is forgotten, we can celebrate. It is your uncle's belief that your father would have wished it so, and it is Scrimgeour's opinion that we should wed and wed soon for Lazen's sake.'

  She said nothing. She turned and walked along one of the paths. She had promised her dying father that she would marry, that she would have Lord Culloden to protect Lazen. That promise was heavy in her, as heavy as the promise that Skavadale would return.

  She thought how she leaned on the Gypsy's promise, leaned on it as if her life was not her own, but in the hands of some benevolent fate. She waited for the Gypsy to come back as if he could free her from her own promise.

  Yet she knew Christopher Skavadale did not have that power. What was between herself and the Gypsy, what had happened on that guilty, star-bright night, was a thing of shadow. The reality was the Castle, her brother's absence, the promise she had made to a dying man.

  She looked into Lord Culloden's face, seeing the lineaments of middle age, the heavy face of a man who would be master of a great fortune. She could see him big in a saddle, his voice confident, a man of few ideas and those irrefutable. Yet, she supposed, that was what Lazen needed. She did not think him a bad man. The worst that she could say of Lord Culloden was
that he had a moustache, that his waist filled perceptibly, and that his touch did not make her veins thrill with excitement. 'I will think about it, my Lord.'

  'I ask nothing more.'

  She thought that he asked for a great deal more, but she smiled, said that the wind was chilling her, and went indoors.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  Dinner that evening was an uncomfortable meal, the conversation more notable for its silence than its words, and Campion was glad to leave the three men to their port, walnuts, cigars, and the chamberpot that was taken from its place in the sideboard.

  She went to the Long Gallery where, an hour later, Uncle Achilles found her.

  She smiled as he sat beside her. He put his boots on the window seat, shook his head, and imitated Cartmel Scrimgeour's unctuous voice. '"What exquisite port, what splendid refreshment!"'

  She smiled.

  Achilles d'Auxigny laughed. 'It was execrable port. I ordered the very worst from your cellarmaster because I knew Scrimgeour wouldn't know the difference. I then kept the brandy for myself!' He waved at the decanter he had brought with him. 'You don't mind?'

  'Of course not.'

  'Or if I take a cigar?'

  'Please.' She watched as he lit the cigar from a candle. 'You've come to lecture me, haven't you?'

  He nodded. 'As an uncle, a bishop, and a sinner it is my solemn duty.'

  She said nothing. The smoke from his cigar drifted into the night beyond the window.

  Achilles poured brandy. 'Poor Lord Culloden. Poor puzzled Lord Culloden. The English are so bad at being puzzled, so very bad. It means that God isn't doing what they expect him to do. Poor Lord Culloden.'

  She had to smile at his extravagant tone of voice. 'Poor?'

  'The silly man, my dear Campion, has somehow got it into his head that you do not wish to marry him.' Achilles smiled at her. 'He's quite right too, isn't he?'

  He looked at her so impishly that he made her laugh, a rare sound in these weeks since her father had died.

  He smiled at her laughter. 'And I am here, dear niece, to tell you that you should marry him.' He made a rueful face at her. 'Your father wanted it, I think you need it, and I'm sure Lazen needs it. Mr Scrimgeour,' and here Uncle Achilles made his voice pompous, 'is most insistent that you marry Culloden. The only sensible thing for the girl to do!' Achilles smiled at her. 'Forget love. It's a dream. It might come, it might not, and it doesn't matter. Love is a fancy for the unfledged. Marry him and make Lazen safe, then find yourself a nice, warm lover if you need one.' His face was mischievous. 'You could even try the Prince of the Gypsies.'

  She looked at him in alarm.

  He laughed. 'Don't worry, my dear niece. I did not tell Lewis the truth.' He tapped ash into a porcelain bowl. 'I saw you leave the ball that night. Did you go to our noble savage?'

  'No.' She looked defiantly at him. 'I was feeling faint.'

  Solemnly he raised the hand which bore the ring of the Bishop of Bellechasse. 'Te absolvo. You are the worst liar I know, Campion Lazender.'

  She felt ashamed. She could not look at him. 'Nothing happened, uncle.'

  'Of course not. You're not that foolish!' Achilles smiled. 'Poor Campion. Do you find your Prince very appealing?'

  For some reason the line from Pascal came into her head and she quoted it softly. 'The heart has reasons that reason doesn't know.'

  Achilles laughed. 'My dear child! Pascal, eh? You do have a bad attack, don't you? Pascal is so eloquent, so charming! Man is the fallen King! How we fear the infinite far spaces! And what does it all boil down to? To nothing. Pascal was a small man who dared not let go of God's apron strings. Dear, dear Campion, what reasons can the heart have that will remove the awkward fact that your Gypsy is just that, a gypsy! A servant! A peasant!'

  'He's more than that!'

  'Oh.' Achilles mocked her. 'Do tell me.'

  She shrugged. 'He works with Toby, not for him. He works for Lord Paunceley, like you do!'

  Achilles stared at her, frowning. 'He told you that?'

  She nodded.

  His voice was suddenly chilling. 'If he told you that, then he was being very foolish. Does he aspire to you? He told you to impress you, yes?' She said nothing. He looked at her profile, bent towards the table, and his voice was harsh. 'You have to give him up, Campion.'

  'I know.' She said it feebly, unhappily. She had hoped against hope that Uncle Achilles would understand, yet she knew that Christopher Skavadale was not of her birth. For all his scorn of convention, Uncle Achilles could not blind himself to that brutal fact.

  Achilles stared into the night. 'You will forget your Gypsy. You will rule your heart's reasons, Campion, and I will never embarrass you by talking of him again. We shall pretend that this conversation has not taken place.' He smiled as she looked at him. 'Are we agreed, favourite niece of mine?'

  She smiled sadly. 'Agreed.'

  'So!' He blew a smoke ring. 'Do I have to inflict the tedious Scrimgeour on you? He will be unctuous, he will be insistent, and he will give you a hundred good reasons why you must marry and marry quickly. Do you want to talk with him?'

  She shook her head. 'No.'

  'Then you must talk to me.'

  She sighed. 'I know what you're going to say.'

  'How boringly predictable you must find me.'

  She smiled. 'I'm sorry, uncle.' She stood. She walked slowly to the gallery's western end, turned, and stared at him where he sat so elegant and neat in the candlelight. 'You want me to marry Lewis, uncle.' She said it flatly.

  'I don't care if you marry the King of Prussia, my dear, but I care that you're married and married well. Lewis is convenient, he serves your purpose. Your purpose is not love. Your purpose is property. You don't have to share a pillow with him, just make sure that if you have a child it looks vaguely like him.' He laughed.

  She ran a finger down the golden seals at her breast. 'Do you want an answer now?'

  'I couldn't bear an answer now. You're altogether too emotional, you would undoubtedly weep, and I would be forced to go to bed with a guilty conscience.' He smiled. 'However, the day after tomorrow I shall return to London, doubtless with the egregious Scrimgeour beside me, and I would like to know by then.'

  'That soon?'

  'And if the answer is yes, dear niece, then I shall be back in two weeks to lead you to the altar.'

  'Two weeks!'

  He stood. 'I've never thought you foolish, Campion. You're one of the few people I know worthy to be a relative of mine, so think about it, be sensible, and give me your answer tomorrow.' He spoke kindly, even lovingly, but with stern purpose.

  She stared at him, then nodded. 'I will tell you tomorrow.' She turned to the window, staring into the shadows of the night for the dark horseman who would come back, but the shadows were empty. She was alone.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  In the Vendee the rebellion was being crushed. The government was winning.

  They won by ruthlessness, by burning the crops, poisoning the wells, and slaughtering the peasants. If they slaughtered all, they reasoned, then they would be bound to kill the guilty. God, as a Pope had once said, could sort the innocent from the rest.

  The guillotine never stopped in Nantes. The blade rose and fell to the sound of the crowd's pleasure.

  The machine of death had to be fed. The peasants from the rebellious Vendee were a constant supply, yet some people yearned for the old days when the well-dressed aristos had been dragged up the steps to be laid on the soaked board. And on that same night when Campion spoke with her uncle in Lazen's Long Gallery, there was hope, at last, that a real aristo would be brought for the crowd's amusement.

  A man had come to claim the reward for Le Revenant, for the English Earl who fought in France, for Toby Lazender. The man, on a dank evening, guided a column of troops through a dripping, silent pine forest towards the village where Le Revenant had his hiding place.

  The Colonel who had been an army butcher no longer
led the troops. His report on the bungling at Saint Gilles had guaranteed his death, a report written by a Captain Tours who was now a full Colonel and took care to write his own reports. Colonel Tours commanded the troops on their slow, dusk approach.

  Colonel Tours' troops were ill trained. They feared the rebels who had such fatal expertise in ambushes and sudden death. The soldiers moved slowly. Night threatened to end the operation by imposing chaos on the half-trained men.

  Tours had hoped to surround the village and then slowly tighten his cordon of bayonets and bullets. Yet the onset of night forced him to abandon the plan. As the shadows stretched long in the dusk he ordered an immediate and frontal attack.

  He had been fortunate so far. Not one sentry had been in the pine trees and his men had reached the lip of the valley unseen. He stressed to the officers that the attack must be fast, that the men must carry their bayonets quickly to the enemy, that speed would win this battle.

  He shouted them forward.

  A ragged line of uniformed men burst from the tree line and ran across the small, damp fields. Hedges slowed them, as did their lack of shoes and the gnawing hunger in their bellies, yet Tours drove them towards the small village where panic could be seen in the torchlit street.

  The first muskets twinkled at the village edge, bright sparks in the twilight that left small clouds of drifting white smoke. The noise of the balls fluttering overhead made some of the troops dive to the ground.

  'Get up, you bastards! Up!'

  More muskets fired from the village. Tours swore. He could see the villagers escaping, running into the safety of the further hills. He shouted at his men to hurry.

  A musket ball clanged on his scabbard, another tore at the leaves of a hedge behind him. 'Fire! Fire!'

  The troops fired a massive volley. The noise rolled like crackling thunder, echoing back from the hills, and then the thunder seemed to grow, to fill the air, and, as he burst through the bank of smoke left by the volley, Tours saw that a house had exploded in the village. 'Go! Go!'